Lagos State Deputy Governor Dr Obafemi Hamzat will tomorrow inaugurate two cutting-edge facilities at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) marking a major milestone in digital humanities research and postgraduate education in Africa.
Hamzat who is also the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in next year’s election will inaugurate the remodelled Centre for Digital Humanities (CEDHUL) and a state-of-the-art Smart Postgraduate Classroom at the university’s Akoka campus.
The ceremony scheduled for 11 am is expected to bring together the university’s Vice-Chancellor principal officers scholars students industry partners and members of the diplomatic and development community.
Established in 2019 CEDHUL is described by the university as sub-Saharan Africa’s first dedicated Centre for Digital Humanities. It promotes the integration of technology data analysis and artificial intelligence into the study preservation and interpretation of African languages archives cultures and history.
The two facilities will support the centre’s Senate-approved postgraduate programmes including the Postgraduate Diploma Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Digital Humanities.
The centre is designed to provide a collaborative research environment for digital archiving computational linguistics text and data analysis and artificial intelligence-driven investigations into African cultures and societies.
The Smart Postgraduate Classroom will provide a technology-enabled learning environment for training a new generation of researchers equipped to combine traditional humanities scholarship with emerging digital tools.
The centre’s Founding Director Prof. Babatunde Olusola Ope-Davies who is described as the first professor of Digital Humanities in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa said the commissioning represented an important step towards redefining humanities scholarship.
He said the facilities would help preserve and interpret Africa’s intellectual heritage while equipping scholars to engage with the opportunities of the digital age.
Hamzat’s participation is also expected to underscore the potential partnership between the Lagos State Government and the university in advancing innovation research youth empowerment and the development of a knowledge-driven economy.
The initiative reflects growing efforts to harness technology not only for scientific and industrial advancement but also for preserving cultural heritage expanding research opportunities and strengthening African scholarship.
For CEDHUL the commissioning marks a new phase in its ambition to position African languages histories and cultural knowledge at the centre of global digital research.
The event will be held at the Centre for Digital Humanities University of Lagos Akoka.